


The Most Dangerous Star at the Dark Centre of the Universe

by xylodemon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, MWPP Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-28
Updated: 2005-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:43:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Remus' life orbits around two very different stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Dangerous Star at the Dark Centre of the Universe

**i. star light**

Saturday enters through the window; sunlight sneaking between crimson curtains in an early morning display of House colours. The beams twist and stretch, forming into thin lines that dance across the shoes and clothes littering the carpet.

Peter's snores meet James' mumbling in the centre of the room, mingling with the sound of rustling linens from inside Sirius' bed. There is the creak of bending wood, the pad of feet hitting the floor, each echoing sharply in Remus' mind. He bends further over his trunk, busying himself the meager belongings inside, and pretends he doesn't see Fiona Windsor stealing from the room out of the corner of his eye.

He counts to ten after the door snicks shut behind her, then moves to Sirius' bed. Through the crack in the drapes Sirius is naked, black hair strewn across his face, long limbs and pale skin stretched across a duvet the colour of surrendered virginities and broken hearts.

Remus reaches out, fingers slipping through the breath of space between the hangings. The velvets sway, Sirius stirs, and Remus' hand falls to his side.

He thinks of warm hands on his body and a Firewhisky-soaked tongue in his mouth, of stubble rasping rough and sweet across his jaw. Remus remembers Sirius' apologies in the morning, wooden words directed at a point over Remus' shoulder before he scampered off with James, and he turns away.

Love, supposedly, is a many splendoured thing. Unreturned, it is bitter and harrowing, and it leaves Remus cold.

The owl that brings the post is as dark and dour as its owner, its snapping beak a testament to its displeasure at having to deliver to the wrong table. It takes care to drop the letter in Sirius' breakfast, and it dips its tail into Sirius' tea before turning to take wing.

Quicksilver eyes turn mercurial and cold as they track the words across the parchment. Sirius' frown deepens and hardens, carving itself so strongly into his features it could easily become as permanent as the hole in Remus' heart.

Remus doesn't ask, because he knows there is no understanding Sirius' family. He doesn't ask, because he knows he will not be told.

Sirius is a public person, from every detention earned to every hand caught under a grey, pleated skirt, a whirling dervish constantly seeking and striving to be the centre of attention. Peter calls it a flair for drama, but Remus believes it is battle. He thinks each outburst of Gryffindor pride and each Hufflepuff pulled behind a greenhouse is another part of Sirius' solitary war, the only available offensive he has against the family he is estranged from.

Sirius bartered his secrets the day he left home, turning them in for a guest room at the Potter's and an inheritance from his uncle, just the way he traded Remus' secrets for pettiness and vengeance and spite.

Remus suspects Sirius may still have secrets hidden inside the vault of his Black heart, but they are few and far between, and if they are allowed out, they are given only to James.

The parchment shrivels in Sirius' hand, crumbling to ash in a shaking palm while his wand waits untouched next to an overflowing plate of blueberry scones. Remus can feel the hatred in the glance Sirius sends across the room, and on the way to Charms, when Sirius favours Remus with a painfully false smile chiselled from his frown, his eyes reflect silver and green.

**ii. star bright**

The position of Head Boy has not calmed James, nor has it matured him, and his change in demeanour since the conquest of Evans is wholly superficial. His new situation only caused a small hiccup in the reign of Slytherin terror he shares with Sirius, a month's time spent growing more devious, becoming more careful a planner. If he thinks twice before a prank, it is not out of a sense of duty, but out of a redoubled fear of being caught, a fear of losing his title and forfeiting the red-haired treasure he fought seven years to obtain.

James is an actor now, a fraud that no one can see for his badge. He plays the respectable student and doting boyfriend for each and every watching eye, but he bundles it away when no one is looking, packing responsibility and romance to the bottom of his trunk as he and Sirius disappear under his cloak.

Remus knows this, and Remus wants no part of it. When discreet notes are passed in his line of sight during History of Magic he absorbs himself in his lesson and tries not to look at Evans, and when he sees two dark heads bent close behind a statue of Ivan the Incorrigible, he spins on his heel in the hall and ignores the conspiratorial whispers that buzz and sting his ears.

He takes sanctuary in the Library, using the threat of books and perpetual quiet as a weapon, a fortress against his own friends. It is the one place James and Sirius rarely dare to tread of their own free will, the one place they will not chase him to rope him into aiding and abetting. If they need a distraction or a decoy, it will have to be Peter, and while Peter may not be their first choice, he is always willing and usually able.

It is not James he fears, not cajoling and wheedling mixed with playful cuffs and joking words, but Sirius. He knows he is no match for Sirius, knows he cannot say no to Sirius' careless smiles and the mischief that dances inside his grey eyes.

He loses himself in the stacks, hiding between shelves full of leather and parchment and ink. He runs his fingers over the spines, tracing the indentations of the tooled letters as he tastes the titles on his tongue.

Nearly an hour has passed when he comes out again, more than enough time for James and Sirius to have scorched or exploded their intended target, to have cornered it and covered it in slime. He allows this false sense of security to lure him out into the open, but he quickly discovers the joke is on him, because Sirius is waiting.

Sirius portrays innocence in the head bent diligently over his work, purports a legitimate reason for his presence in the books stacked around him. Remus knows it only a ploy, knows it is nothing more than a trap, but he goes, because he is rarely afforded more than a moment with Sirius alone.

He looks up when Remus sets his books on the table, and there is a curious moment of silence as Remus realises his mistake.

Remus forms an apology on his tongue, but the words twist and writhe like snakes, refusing to still long enough for him to catch them and spit them out. He stares instead, shocked and slightly panicked, trying to reconcile so much familiarity on the face of someone else.

He's only been this close to Regulus once before, but he hadn't looked, hadn't noticed, because it had not been the time or place to take stock. Regulus had been on his back on a fourth floor hallway with his knee in Sirius' groin and Sirius' fist in his stomach, and Remus' concern then had been the bruise on Sirius' cheek and the blood tricking from the corner of his mouth, not the arch of Regulus' eyebrow or the line of his jaw.

"Sorry," Remus manages finally. Colour rushes hot and bright to his cheeks, and he reaches for his books with hands that tremble.

"Lupin, is it?" Regulus asks slowly. His voice is much different, refined and controlled where Sirius' is reckless and free.

Remus nods, because his words have abandoned him again.

"You may stay," Regulus says, with offhand gesture to the chair at Remus' side.

"I shouldn't."

"No," Regulus murmurs, his grey eyes cutting through Remus like a knife. "My brother probably wouldn't approve."

Remus stiffens, taking a sharp breath that whistles through gritted teeth, and Regulus smiles, his lips curving in a way Remus has seen so many times before on a slightly different face.

"Go then," Regulus says, "but when my brother doesn't have time to play with you, remember that I offered."

Remus drops his books with a thump that rattles through the silence, and the legs of the chair shriek against the floor, begging him to reconsider as he pulls it away from the table.

**iii. first star i see tonight**

Laughter buzzes through the Great Hall like a horde of insects, swooping and swirling in the air and scattering itself amongst the crowd. It's a strained laughter, pinched and forced, from people who have been trained by their entertainers to react, even though they've seen the stunt before and didn't find it funny the first time.

A battle rages across the room, an assault launched on Slytherin in the form of exploding custards and tap-dancing shepherd's pies. Remus pretends he doesn't see it, despite the shouts and yelps and bangs that ring endlessly in his ears, because he doesn't want to see the accusation that no doubt fills Regulus Black's eyes.

Sirius is suspiciously still next to him, and he keeps his delight at the Slytherin discomfort and his satisfaction at a job well done disguised, hidden inside the thigh that shakes where it is pressed against Remus' own. On the other side of Sirius, James snorts and preens from behind his Transfiguration text, and Remus hopes for Evans sake that he realises it is upside-down before someone of import pauses to look.

McGonagall's Scottish brogue fills the air, slicing through the pandemonium like the edge of a knife. Once she disarms the puddings and calms the shepherd's pies with a wand that dances on the tips of her fingers she turns, her eyes sweeping the Gryffindor table from end to end.

Sirius placidly butters his roll, and James turns a page of his still upside-down Transfiguration text. Peter blushes into his glass of pumpkin juice, and Remus, unable to contain himself, dares a glance at the Slytherin front once the cavalry of tartan has passed.

Regulus is seated halfway down the table, and Remus is sure that it was not coincidence that cause just there to be the area where the worst of the damage was sustained. Regulus is the picture of frosty disdain, narrowed eyes and pursed lips, and he holds himself straight and high, as if the custard in his hair and crumbs speckling his robes are nothing more than a nuisance that he cannot be bothered to address.

His eyes narrow even further when he catches Remus watching him, and while Remus cannot tell from the distance, he is sure they are nearly black with anger. He leans back in his chair, folding his arms as if to brace himself for another attack, and a sneer plays across his lips, hateful and cold.

Sirius' elbow is sharp and unexpected, and it jolts Remus with enough force that is fork clatters noisily to the table.

"Stop staring," Sirius hisses. "You'll give us away."

Remus murmurs something placating and agreeable, and when he retrieves his fork he keeps his eyes off Regulus and turns his attention to stabbing desultorily at his food. He wants to shout at Sirius, for stealing his heart and taking advantage of his prize on one drunken night, for waging a ridiculous war against his family with the school as his field and his friends as his vanguard, but he doesn't. He knows Sirius won't hear it, knows it will be drowned out by Hufflepuff laughter and collateral Slytherin damage and James Potter's approving smile.

Anger bubbles inside him, rising until it threatens to boil over like a dangerous and deadly potion, an acid that eats away at the shattered fragments of his heart. He calms himself with the knowledge that he has something Sirius does not. He has a secret now, a secret of his own, one that Sirius does not know to give away, and one that, if Remus is careful, Sirius never will.

There is a letter tucked inside his Charms text, a sheet of delicate parchment stamped with the Black Family crest with line upon line of words scrawling across its surface in thin, spidery script. Its contents are innocuous and benign -- accounts of Regulus' last Hogsmeade weekend, his concern for his Potions marks, his hatred for History of Magic -- but the contents are for Remus and only for Remus, and if Remus has his way, Sirius will never know.

Sirius will never know that Remus means to reply, that a half-written response is hidden a few pages deeper inside that same text. He will never know how hard Remus struggles to find something to say, because his daily life orbits around a different star, around things Regulus wouldn't understand and people Regulus hates.

Sirius elbows him again, gentler this time. He smiles when Remus turns to him, a lazy, almost flirtatious smile that makes heat build and spread through Remus' body, reminding Remus of things it shouldn't, but it doesn't touch his eyes, and Remus knows that for him, it never will.

"What'chya thinking about, Moony?"

"Nothing, Padfoot," Remus says. "Nothing at all."

**iv. i wish i may, i wish i might**

The map had been a collaborative effort from the first, a way for four teenaged boys to prove their intelligence and wit by immortalizing it on paper. Sirius' idea had been brought to life by James' charmwork, by a spell James had crafted and formed from scratch. The fruits of Peter's stealth and small stature had been set on the page by Remus' steady hand, sepia lines drawn while the other three had watched impatiently over his shoulder.

Sirius taught it to speak in a mad fancy the others had discouraged, warping spells meant to reveal invisible ink and decipher hidden codes. He never admitted it, but Remus knows he regretted giving the map its own personality once it learned to snark him with the same impudence it did everyone else.

Losing the map had been a collaborative effort as well, the unfortunate result of James waiting in the wrong empty classroom while Peter had been locked in a broom cupboard with the cloak and Remus had been at the mercy of an indecisive staircase. In truth, it had been Sirius who dropped it in a corridor while running from Filch, but he never would have been there, alone and left to his own devices, if the prank in question had not gone so foul and far afield to begin with.

Remus wishes for it now, because the darkness is absolute, clinging heavily to the walls and wrapping tightly around the statues and suit of armour. The only light is a silver trickle from the feeble sliver of moon fighting the clouds to peek through the windows.

He knows the twists and turns of the corridors by heart after skulking through them for the better part of seven years, knows the entrance to each secret passage and where they lead. It's not the locations of the shifting classrooms and moving doors he wants, because he knows those as well, but reassurance. He wants to know that he is not being watched or followed, that Filch will not catch him out of bounds in the middle of the night with Regulus Black.

Regulus walks close to Remus, their shoulder's brushing with every step, but if he is nervous or uncomfortable at sneaking in the halls at night he does not show it. His face is an implacable mask and his posture is perfect, his pureblood pride drawn around him like a shield. He says nothing when Remus stops suddenly, and his eyes widen only for the briefest moment when the Room of Requirement materializes in front of them.

The Room makes itself small and cosy, with chairs set around a low table and tea set for two. Remus frowns at the bed tucked into the corner under a window, but he decides to ignore the Room's presumption rather than leave and stand in the hall as bait for Filch while waiting for the Room to sort itself out.

"This is what you and my brother do at night?" Regulus asks, sitting in one of the chairs. He frowns at the chipped, mismatched service as he pours himself a cup of tea. "Sneak around in the halls?"

"Sometimes we sneak around outside," Remus replies.

Regulus snorts at that, but it's a delicate, well-bred sound, and he sips his tea, watching over the rim of his cup as Remus pours his own.

"What did you think we got up to?" Remus asks, suddenly curious. What the rest of the school thinks of he and his friends has never occurred to him.

"I don't know," Regulus replies. "I try not to think on the habits of Gryffindors."

"Does it bother you, that Sirius wasn't Sorted into Slytherin?"

Regulus ponders this into his tea for a moment, then shakes his head with a gentle sway of black hair.

"No, other than I have to hear about every holiday," Regulus says. "We never did get on, even before he turned traitor, and if he's up in the Tower, he's Potter's problem, not mine."

"I hear he's buggering Potter," Regulus continues, disgust flickering in the twist of his lips.

"He's not," Remus replies, and as far as he knows, that's true.

"Well, _you_ would say that. You wish he was buggering you."

Remus stiffens, and he hides the flush on his face behind his teacup, hides the way anger and embarrassment is battling across his cheeks. He knows Regulus is probably just fishing, casting barbed comments in hopes of landing a secret, but that doesn't make it sting any less.

He looks up to find Regulus standing in front of him, favouring him with a sly smile that Remus has seen so many times before on Sirius' face, a smile that means there is mischief to manage and that trouble is on its way in large amounts. The flicker of pure heat in Regulus eyes makes them shine like silver, and it says the bed in the corner may not have been just the Room's presumption.

Remus tells himself that no good can come from this, that this is a horrifically bad idea. He knows this isn't what he wants, that fucking Regulus will leave him as empty and cold as he'd been the morning after Sirius fucked him.

But Regulus is warm when he slides into Remus' lap, and Remus shivers when his arms twine around his neck, skin sliding against skin. Regulus flashes another of Sirius' smiles as he leans close, and Remus can't bring himself to stop it, can't make himself push Regulus away.

Regulus' tongue is hot and slick as it slips into Remus' mouth, and he tastes of tea, not Firewhisky, and Remus find he is grateful. His hands cup Remus' cheeks rather than fisting rough in his hair, and when he pulls back he is silent, instead of coaxing with dirty things whispered in Remus' ear.

"Don't," Remus manages, sanity clawing to the surface for a fleeting moment. "You don't like me."

"I might," Regulus replies, his lips grazing Remus' jaw. "But if I did, my brother would not approve."

Remus growls, and kisses him again, and tries to convince himself with each dip of his tongue that this is nothing more that two people enjoying each other, and that Sirius has nothing to do with it, for either of them.

He fucks Regulus on the floor partially to spite the Room and partially to spite himself. He fucks Regulus on the floor because he's only done this on a bed once before, and he gained nothing from that but a broken heart and excuses in the morning.

The warmth coursing through him as his cock moves in and out of Regulus' body is a strange contrast to the bitterness in his mind and the chill in his heart, and he welcomes it as much as he loathes it, unable to decide which is worse.

He bites his lip when he comes to stop himself from whispering Sirius' name, and when Regulus' lips move against his neck as he spills over Remus' fingers, the choked, broken name he hisses out doesn't sound like Remus at all.

**v. have the wish i wish tonight**

Wandlight bathes the interior of Remus' bed with a golden glow, casting the red velvets in a strange, orangish hue. The shadow of Remus' hand stretches long and dark across the parchment, twisting and dancing as he writes.

The scratch of his quill feels loud, but there is no one around to hear it. James and Sirius are out at the Shack planning something Remus doesn't want to know about, and Peter is asleep, his snores cutting through the quiet at regular intervals.

When the door creaks open to admit James and Sirius he freezes, and he holds his breath, hoping light is not spilling into the room through the crack in his drapes. He listens as they pick their way through the room, stumbling and cursing in a way that says the blueprint for their latest prank involved a substantial amount of alcohol.

Remus stows the letter under his pillow when silence descends again, because he is unwilling to get caught, because he knows he doesn't have an explanation Sirius would accept. He wonders why he and Regulus bother writing at all, now that they say everything that needs to be said with lips and mouths and hands and cocks.

His hangings part just as he's capping his inkwell, and Sirius is regarding him silently when he looks up, his drunkenness evident in the slight sway of his body.

"You're writing my brother again," Sirius says.

"No," Remus says, and he is painfully aware of how unconvincing he sounds.

"Don't lie to me, Moony," Sirius says. His words are slow and careful, as if he is trying deliberately not to slur them.

"I--"

Sirius cuts him off by crawling into the bed, yanking the hangings closed behind him a bit harder than necessary.

"You've fucked him," Sirius says. Remus starts to argue, but Sirius silences him with a wave. "Don't tell me you haven't. He told me."

"Why would he tell you something like that?" Remus asks, his voice as shaky as his body.

"He thought it would bother me."

"Does it?" Remus asks. Sirius' eyes flash, silver burnished gold in the wandlight, and Remus regrets his words immediately.

Sirius kisses him then, with a Firewhisky tongue and fingers tangled in his hair, and Remus feels himself shattering on the inside, fissures spreading across his heart like a crack climbing vine-like up a pane of glass.

"You don't want this," Remus says, because he knows it's true.

"I don't want you fucking my brother," Sirius replies. He pushes Remus back into the pillows and kisses him again, kisses him until he's hard and shaking and unable to breathe.

"Mine," Sirius murmurs, in a voice that is low and hoarse and laced with alcohol. "Not his."

Remus pulls Sirius in for a kiss with a hand curled around the back of his neck and fumbles with the other on the bed until he finds his wand. He extinguishes it with a spell half-whispered into Sirius' mouth, knowing full well the light of Sirius' star is only going to burn him again.


End file.
